


Love Can't Kill the Demon

by ahab2692



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Derek is a sociopath, Derek pines, F/M, M/M, So is Jackson, Stiles is clueless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:05:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahab2692/pseuds/ahab2692
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Serial Killer AU: Out here, you're a man and a gentleman, or you aren't anything at all. And God help you if you're not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Can't Kill the Demon

**Author's Note:**

> All I can say is...don't ignore the archive warnings.

_"Out here, you're a man and a gentleman, or you aren't anything at all. And God help you if you're not."_   - Lou Ford

***

Derek only sees a psychiatrist once in his life, although anyone with insight into the workings of his mind would argue without hesitation that he is in desperate need of extensive therapy. Unfortunately, no such person exists, either by the cruel design of fate or by sheer happenstance, and so he goes just the one time. He’s six years old.

The whole affair is instigated by an incident at school. A boy in his class steals his scissors during arts and crafts, and Derek bites him on the arm. Hard and fast, and it the boy screams in shock as blood gushes out and dribbles down Derek’s chin. The teacher is young and new, and she’s so shocked and frazzled, she can’t think of a better way to pry Derek off the kid’s arm than to slap him across the face.

He backs off immediately, landing on his rear on the bluish-purple carpet, hand going up to gingerly touch the red handprint on his cheek. The teacher’s eyes go wide and she starts tearing up, babbling out apologies as she simultaneously tries to bandage the other boy’s bite mark. 

Derek doesn’t cry. He doesn’t throw a fit, doesn’t tattle, not even when his parents show up later that afternoon and thoroughly chastise him about behaving around other children. He never says a word.

Lying awake in his bed that night, he thinks about that slap while listening absently as his parents argue downstairs. He thinks about how it felt, about what it meant. He’s never been struck before, never seen any real-world violence. It’s different than the stuff he’s seen on TV; all that monotonous recycled garbage where everyone in the world owns a gun and knows how to use it.

This is different. It’s real and it _hurts_. Not much - it was just a slap, after all - but it definitely stings. And it’s the first time in his young life that he feels connected, feels self-aware. It’s like an awakening. 

_I am alive_ , he thinks, pulling the covers up to his chin, a goofy little smile twisting his mouth upward at the corners. Every fiber of his being is vibrant and itching for the action. It’s not something he understands at the time, but it’s the beginning of the end.

Not to say that moment of pain _changed_ him, or anything like that. Reflecting back on it as a young man, he observes dryly that he probably could never have been anything other than what he turned out to be, regardless of whether that slap happened or not.

But it’s the slap that sticks with him. It’s the slap that ruined any chance he ever had at being a normal human being.

***

The psychiatrist - the one he only goes to see once - tells his parents that there’s nothing much he can do.

They’re taken aback by this, and more than a little annoyed, since they’ve paid good money to root out the cause of their child’s antisocial behavior.

“What do you mean, that’s it?” his father protests, face squishing together unpleasantly, arms folded across his chest. “He’s a six year old boy and he bit one of his classmates. Surely it’s not _that_ uncommon. So what the hell do you mean, there’s ‘nothing you can do?’ What sort of a doctor are you?”

“He’s a _child_ ,” his mother pipes in, standing beside her husband in unspoken agreement. “It’s your _job_ to get inside his head. How can you give up after one session?”

“It’s not that I can’t get inside his head, ma’am,” the therapist says, tone calm and collected in the sort of superior manner that’s bound to make them even angrier. “It’s that I _have_ gotten inside his head, and there’s nobody there.”

He could have phrased it better, could have made it seem like less of an insult. But whether it’s the nasty jibe of a miffed therapist or the honest opinion of a seasoned professional, that little unpleasant token of wisdom is the closest Derek’s parents get to a warning of things to come. And they’re fools for ignoring it.

They cuss out the man for a few more minutes before Mr. Hale flips him the bird and Mrs. Hale grabs Derek by the wrist and drags him out to the car and they all drive away without a second look back.

And if Derek ever to had a chance at fixing what’s broken inside, it’s certainly gone now.

***

Kate Argent comes into his life like an angel of death, striding down the supermarket isle with the confident air of a woman who always gets what she wants and doesn’t take no for an answer.

He never sees her coming. And even if he had, he’d probably have gone ahead and made the same stupid decisions anyway. Every step of the way.

It’s the summer of his fifteenth year, and he’s in that uncomfortable stage of adolescence where the gangly awkwardness of boyhood is trying to make way for his burgeoning masculinity. He’s working part-time as a cashier to earn a little spending money, but with Kate turning out to be a repeat customer, the job itself is becoming a greater reward than the cash it provides.

Teenage ungainliness aside, Derek’s a good-looking kid, and he knows it as well as anybody else. Even so, most of the girls his age bore him, and the few who capture his fancy are either spoken for already or simply not worth the monotony of dating. The most beautiful girl in the world couldn’t make milkshakes and hand-holding at the cineplex seem like anything other than a colossal waste of time.

Kate’s different, though, and Derek finds himself perking up at the intonation of the electric buzzer and craning his neck to see if it’s she who is entering into his workplace to spark the flames of desire within him once more. It’s not that she’s noticeably more gorgeous than any other young woman in town, or that she’s only one who flirts with Derek. (After all, he _is_ quite the looker, and there are plenty of horny housewives shameless enough to make make a meaningless pass at a teenage boy.)

No, what makes her different is the distinct lack of bullshit in her demeanor. Other women, other girls; they might spare him a second glance, a lascivious smile, a wink. But there’s never any intent. There’s no promise behind it. They flirt for flirting’s sake, to make themselves feel desirable and sexy and appealing. And Derek loathes them for it.

With Kate, the promise is _there_. Right there in plain view. He’s sure of it from the start.

Their first encounter is brief: he’s sweeping up a spilled bag of dog food in the back, and she’s picking out a carton of milk to add to the nearly-full shopping cart. Their eyes meet and he gives her his best customer-service smile. She tilts her head to the side, mouth curling up to the left in a knowing smirk. _Come on_ , it says. _You can do better than that._ So he lets the phoniness drop and gives her a genuine smile; smaller and less toothy, reserved and meaningful. She nods, satisfied, and goes about her business.

It should be a non-thing, but Derek’s struck by the fact that this woman could so easily see through his bullshit, and he begins to think about her a lot more than he should. A crush would be inadequate as a description. Obsession fits the bill.

They see each other regularly at the store, and it gets to the point where Kate will check out at his lane no matter what, even if his is the longest line. She doesn’t flirt like everyone else; she doesn’t toss him unsubtle compliments and bat her eyelids like a shy schoolgirl. She just smiles while he scans her items one by one, looking into his eyes unblinkingly, the hint of a secretive smile twisting at the edges of her lips. 

It’s a downright predatory look, and it gives Derek a thrill unlike anything else.

About a month of this goes by until he runs into her in the parking lot at work one night, at the tail end of his evening shift. The lot is nearly empty, with no people in sight. They’re alone together for the first time.

“You shop here a lot,” Derek says, and even though he doesn’t try to make it sound like a come-on, he mentally kicks himself for the lameness of the opener.

Kate just tilts her head to the side, her mouth curling in that same _You can do better than that_ smirk she flashed him when they first met. “It’s the closest store to my house,” she replies evenly, and Derek’s stomach swells with heat because he knows she could have phrased it as a shut-down, but instead her tone came across as encouraging, urging him to pursue.

“I wasn’t emphasizing that you shop _here_ a lot,” Derek amends, tone deadpan. “As opposed to some other store. I meant that you shop here _a lot_.”

“Is that a crime?” she asks, and Derek’s momentarily taken aback by the brittleness with which she says it. He thinks that maybe, perhaps he’s misinterpreted the situation. 

But then he sees the waver in the thin line of her mouth, the beginnings of a smile, and he realizes it’s just more foreplay. He can work with that. “It might be,” he replies, shoving his hands into his pockets. “If your intentions are what they appear to be, then yeah. Some people might consider it a crime.”

Bingo. Her eyes light up, pleased at the way he just cuts right to the chase, albeit indirectly. She folds one leg over the other, leaning against the side of her car in a pose somewhere between seductive and menacing. “Oh?” she asks, eyes going wide in mock surprise, mouth pursed into an O-shape as she breathes it out. “And what, might I ask, do you believe my intentions to be?” The skin around her eyes crinkles as she bares her teeth in a feral grin. “Other than shopping for milk and orange juice, of course.”

Maybe there’s more talking, maybe there’s not. Derek doesn’t really remember.

The next thing he’s aware of is the two of them clambering into Kate’s car and driving around to the back of the building beside the dumpsters, pushing the seats into recline and unbuckling each other’s pants as their tongues turn hot and slick in the heat of each other’s mouths.

Somewhere in the middle of it, she manages to rip his shirt open, straddling his waist as one of the buttons flies off and clinks against the window. Derek can’t find it in him to care; especially not while Kate’s tongue is working down the line of his neck, searing hot, wet kisses into the skin of his chest. The smell of the leather upholstery is pervasively acrid, but it’s soon overpowered by the stink of sweat and sex, and Derek forgets about it entirely by the time his eyes are rolling back into his skull, his cock spasming in Kate’s hand as he reaches orgasm.

He feels dizzy when she rolls off of him, twisting her underwear back up the length of her legs as she lounges in the driver’s seat. She spares him a brief smile, a sated expression, and then she’s turning the key in the ignition.

“That was fun,” she says lightly, pulling back around to the front. 

Derek doesn’t disagree.

***

He’s not an idiot. He has no delusions about this lasting forever.

It’s casual sex, a summer fling at the most. He’s clueless as to what exactly she’s getting out of the arrangement, but he certainly isn’t going to complain about it. If an experienced adult woman like Kate Argent wants to spend her evenings hooking up with a teenage grocery store clerk in the back alley by the trash heap, that’s her call. 

He’s just along for the ride.

His parents are oblivious, as is their trademark state of being. After years of gleaning nothing from stilted after-school conversations, they’ve long since given up on asking Derek about female classmates. His mother probably thinks he’s a ‘late bloomer.’ His father probably thinks he’s gay.

Laura and Uncle Peter are wiser, though they never actually come right out and say what’s on their mind. Laura is the sort of sister who understands that there are certain things siblings don’t want to discuss with one another, and although she’d be happy to listen if he wanted her ear, she’d never push him into a conversation he didn’t want to have. Peter is slightly less subtle, giving Derek stern, suspicious glares when he shows up late after his evening shift at the store and constantly reminding him that high school flings are good practice for real world relationships.

Derek responds to their concern with casual indifference. It occurs to him one night that he doesn’t care a lick about their worries. Nor would he care what they thought if they were to discover what was actually going on.

He’s too busy with life to bother much with introspection, but he’s still aware that, perhaps, his affectlessness is the first sign that something’s wrong with him.

***

The second sign comes soon after, lying in the backseat of Kate’s car, struggling to get it up after a long day of work.

“Jesus,” Kate mutters, clasping the buttons of her blouse together. “You’re too young to have this kind of problem. What are you, an old man?”

“Just give me a second,” Derek grits out, stroking himself to no avail. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

She scoffs, shifting slightly, making to return to the front seat. “Standing on your feet for a few hours scanning cans of soup doesn’t stop a real man when he’s needed.”

It’s an obvious taunt, just begging for a fight, and in retrospect, he should have just ignored it. But it’s the first time she’s regarded him as weak, the first time she’s directly addressed the age difference, and something about it gets under his skin. He sees white, and without thinking about it, he grabs a fistful of her hair and yanks her back. 

She yelps in surprise, and his hand releases her hair, only to come around and grab hold of her throat, fingers constricting her air flow as he presses her down into the length of the backseat. The back of her head bops against the car door, and her eyes screw shut in pain as he forces his knee in between her legs, prying them open. The hand not clenching at her neck snakes its way underneath the waistband of her underwear.

Her eyes fly open as he clamps down. _Hard._

“That man enough for you?” he snarls, feeling the fire burning in his eyes.

She blinks up at him, eyes wide, and a thrill of heat blossoms in his chest at the same time as the rage begins to dissipate. He lets go of her neck, wincing as she chokes for breath.

“I...” he starts, not sure whether to even bother with an apology, since he’s so very clearly fucked things up. Not to mention that he doesn’t actually feel sorry at all.

He starts to withdraw his other hand from her pants, sliding it out slowly, but she surprises him by grabbing ahold of his wrist, shoving his hand back in.

“Well, my my my...” she whispers, gazing up at him with heated intensity, pupils dilated with lust. “Didn’t know you were into the kinky shit, sweetheart.”

His eyebrows knit together in puzzlement, and he’s about to reply, but then he feels an aching hardness in his groin and realizes what she’s talking about.

She bucks up into his hand, letting out a gurgling moan of pleasure. “You should have told me,” she murmurs, predatory cheshire-cat grin splayed out across her face.

He’s not sure how to respond to that, but she saves him the trouble by raking her fingernails through his dark hair and yanking him down to fuck his mouth with her tongue. 

They don’t do much talking after that.

***

And so she introduces him, indirectly, to a side of himself he never suspected existed. A side with an appetite for the rough stuff; seriously screwed up, dangerous, kinky sex without the comfort of a safe word. 

She’s about as into it as he is (of course she is), and her satisfaction with his aggression only exacerbates the thrill of pushing everything to the limit. Every step he takes towards the brink just makes him crave the excitement of going all the way even more.

Somewhere, deep down, he’s always known that he would end up killing someone. He’s fantasized about it before, thought it out in detail. 

[There was one kid, a regular teacher’s pet, in his English class who seriously rubbed him the wrong way. Derek imagined getting up during the lecture and sharpening his pencil at the front of the classroom, taking his time, staring the boy down as everybody took notes, oblivious to his plan. He imagined casually drifting by the boy’s desk and jamming the sharpened point of the pencil into his jugular vein, standing back and watching as the kid floundered uselessly on the floor, bleeding out while the rest of the room screamed in terror.]

Yet those have all been wistful fantasies. Nothing he’s ever actually considered going through with, just daydreams to pass the time.

_This_ , however, what they’re doing now...

There’s something here. He can sense it.

Maybe it won’t be Kate. Maybe she’ll have moved on to new conquests by the time he snaps and has to act out. But she’ll always be the catalyst. 

She’ll always be the one who made him realize what he was born to be.

***

He’s out for coffee with Laura when they see the fire on the news: their whole house up in flames, smoke billowing up towards the camera as the Channel 4 helicopter team swoops overhead to survey the damage.

Laura is a ball of nervous energy, mumbling to herself and trying not to cry as they drive up the length of the woodside road towards the tower of ash in the distance. Derek doesn’t say a word, just keeps both of his hands on the steering wheel and stares straight ahead.

The fire is almost out by the time they arrive on the scene, and the cops are already starting to put up the yellow tape. Laura chokes out a strangled sob as the paramedics wheel a stretcher with a body bag into the back of the ambulance, and she sinks to her knees on the grass, indifferent to the comforting hand of the policewoman rubbing circles on her back. Derek watches as the paramedics press the paddles against Peter’s chest, reviving him after the third or fourth try. 

He listens unblinkingly as the cops quietly explain to him that his parents have perished in the inferno.

He looks up at the blackened remains of his home and reaches into the depths of his being to try and dredge up any feeling whatsoever.

All he comes up with is a twinge of disappointment that his first experience with death ended up being so anticlimactic.

***

Peter survives, but the doctors say that it may take years for him to come out of his coma.

Derek and Laura don’t have any other family, so they’re pawned off on some foster family; a rich couple who spend most of their days vacationing in foreign countries and hardly ever bother to check in. One year later, the two of them are legally emancipated, as if it makes a difference. They’d been taking care of themselves since the fire anyway.

They stay in Beacon Hills until Derek finishes his junior year, but Laura can’t take any more than that.

“I have to get out of this place,” she tells him one night, sitting out in plastic chairs on the front porch of the crappy one-room apartment they share together. “I can’t stay here.”

Derek nods. He’s expected this for a while, so it comes as no surprise. “Won’t you miss your friends?” he asks, not because he cares, but because at least this way he can say that he put up something of a fight if her plans end up falling through.

“What friends?” she scoffs bitterly. “Everyone treats us like we’re fragile china. Like we need to be coddled and pandered to every fucking moment, just because our childhoods turned out really sad. I can’t think of single person I know who treats me like anything other than a glass doll.”

“Where would you go?” he asks evenly.

She gestures meaninglessly, huffing a frustrated sigh. “Does it matter? I was thinking maybe L.A. Who cares...Anywhere but here.”

“You wanna leave, I won’t stop you,” Derek says calmly, refusing to match her agitation. “The rent’s not so much that I can’t handle it by myself.”

Laura gives him a look, pained and exasperated and fond. “I’m not going without you,” she says softly.

He shrugs. “Your call, I guess.”

She sighs, face coming to rest against the palm of her hand, fingers working the skin slowly, like she’s got a sudden migraine. “Promise me you’ll think about it,” she murmurs. “I won’t make you go anywhere you don’t want to, but promise me you’ll think about leaving. I can’t take this place for very much longer.”

“I’ll think about it,” Derek replies, even though they both know he’s already made up his mind to go with her no matter what. 

He’s got nothing holding him here either.

***

Los Angeles is a shit-hole.

Admittedly, he never really gave it much of a chance; he decided he hated it the minute they stepped off the bus. But his feelings turn out to be justified, more or less, so he doesn’t regret the snap judgment one bit.

He finishes out his general education in an ungodly mess of an inner city school. He doesn’t even pretend to try and make friends, and the teachers don’t put forth any effort to make him fit in. No one cares.

Their apartment isn’t any worse than the one back in Beacon Hills, although Derek’s pretty sure one of their neighbors is a crack dealer. The pipes leak and the baseboards gather dust at an alarming rate every week, but it’s livable.

By the time he’s 21, he has a steady job at a downtown deli serving sandwiches and drinks. It’s a quaint little place, as far as city restaurants go, and it doesn’t get a lot of business. It’s nice and quiet, just the way Derek likes it.

The problem is the city itself, the constrictive nature of it. Derek isn’t a sentimental guy, and he has no delusions about small towns being perfect and wholesome, but he needs the space to _breathe_. There are too many people here. It’s suffocating. He feels saturated by their stench.

Once or twice, lying awake at night on his moldy mattress by the apartment window, he considers giving Kate a call, maybe catching up. But he never does. Because it’s not _her_ he misses, not her who makes him wake up in the darkness drenched in sweat, boxers soaked with semen. It’s the glimpse of nirvana she represented. The taste of that dark desire he’s kept a lid on for so long.

It’s gone undisturbed for far too long, and the beast is beginning to awaken. It needs to be fed.

So he doesn’t call. Instead, he walks several blocks down to a back alley strip joint and makes small talk with one of the dancers. 

Her name (on stage and in reality) is Jasmine, and she’s quick to throw modesty to the wind.

“See this?” she asks, twisting a finger through the blond curls of her hair. She cups her breasts, barely restrained by a black-lace bra. “See these? It’s all genuine, baby. Nothing fake here.”

“Good,” Derek deadpans, pulling out another twenty to slip inside the waistband of her panties. “Because I’m looking for something real.”

He buys her several rounds of drinks and offers to walk her home once her shift is over. They end up making out against the wall in the alley outside her apartment; drunken, sloppy kisses traded in the shadow of the crusty brick walls.

Making out turns into Derek ramming into her on the dirty ground, cupping a hand over her mouth as she reaches climax, stifling the sound with all of his might.

“Shit,” she breathes, laughing a little as he pulls his hand away. “You like it rough, don’t you, big boy?

He pants heavily, still straddling her, his hands pressed palm down on either side of her head, framing her. “I’ve been told so.”

It takes about thirty seconds of neither of them moving for her smile to start fading away. He sees the look in her eye, the seedlings of doubt beginning to bloom. He doesn’t make a move yet, doesn’t betray his thoughts with a careless expression. He wants to see the change in her face, wants to see the exact moment when she realizes that all of the nightmare stories she’s heard about from her coworkers and friends and from the tabloid gossip section are about to happen to _her_ , right _here_ , right _now_.

He doesn’t move, just steadies his breathing, gazing unblinkingly into her eyes. He watches as the doubt turns into nervousness, and from nervousness into fear. He shifts his hands to brush his fingertips gingerly against her jawline, tracing the curve of her throat. He doesn’t apply pressure yet, allowing just enough ambiguity to make her think that maybe, just maybe, she’s wrong about what’s going to happen next.

And then she opens her mouth, either to talk or to scream, and Derek clenches down hard, digging his fingernails into the soft flesh with merciless vigor.

Her eyes bulge and her hands come up to scratch at his face, missing him with every swipe. Her legs buck beneath him, but he’s too big and too strong for her to make him budge.

It doesn’t last nearly as long as he expects it to - or maybe the time just flies by due to the adrenaline rush - and his hands are shaking as he peels them away from the ugly purple bruise that’s burned forever into the pale stretch of her neckline. Her eyes stare up at him dully and his heart beats a mile a minute inside his chest as he stares right back.

His first kill. Sure, the choice of a stripper is cliché, but it’s still a milestone.

He’s never felt more awake. 

***

Laura doesn’t put up too much of a fight when he decides to return to Beacon Hills. Mostly because she’s just grateful he stuck with her as long as he did.

“Promise me you’ll be happy?” she says with a watery smile, hugging him goodbye at the bus station. 

He lifts his bags and flashes her the charming smile he perfected during his time as a cashier. “I’ll do my utmost.”

She waves tearfully as the bus rolls away, and he waves back, watching through the mirror as her figure recedes into the distance.

It’s the last time he ever sees her. He doesn’t think to call her until after three months of being back, and when he does, he learns that she’s moved from the apartment. She never gets in contact with him, and he never finds out what happened to her.

_It’s for the best_ , he tells himself. He doesn’t want to be this way, but he is what he is. You can’t change your nature.

At least this way she’s out of the path of the tornado. 

***

Returning home after so many years ought to feel like a surreal experience, but it mostly just feels inevitable. Walking up the steps of his family home, entering into the charred remains of his childhood abode, Derek breathes in the musty smell with a sense of calm resignation.

He was always going to end up back here. Even if he’d wanted something else, his path would inexorably lead to this place of memory and loss.

Regardless, he takes about a week to settle in before reassembling the shattered pieces of his life.

He finds work at an auto-repair shop fixing cars. The boss - a fat, greasy man named Eddie - is as lazy as they come, and he almost never shows up anymore. Derek does virtually all of the work, which is fine by him. He needs something to keep his mind occupied during the day.

It’s a perfect job: conspicuous enough to avoid a reputation as ‘that creepy guy who lives by himself in the burned-down house,’ but private enough to avoid constant interaction with members of the community.

Coming to terms with himself as a human being lacking in emotional attachment, Derek’s perfected the art of antisocial behavior. The key to getting by unnoticed in society is _not_ , as many people would wrongly suspect, avoiding the public at all costs. Most people don’t bother looking past the surface, and if his surface is that of a suspicious recluse, then that’s what everyone’s going to see. Nor is the answer trying to feign extroverted friendliness. Even the least perceptive people can pick up on phoniness after a long enough time. Genuine kindness is seriously hard to fake, and Derek’s not going to bother with it.

No, the right approach, as with many things in life, is striking a balance between the two extremes: sticking to his natural inclination of being a loner, while still holding a steady job that provides a useful service to his neighbors. Making no bones about his distaste for social gatherings, while at the same time passing his hesitancy off as shyness instead of venom.

Balance is the key.

And for a time, things seem like they might work out for him after all. Maybe he doesn’t have to be a monster. He doesn’t date, in part because most of the young women his age are finishing up college in other cities or simply don’t pique his interest. But mostly because it’s too soon to tempt the beast. That hunger will have to wait.

He goes about five months without incident. It feels like some sort of record.

And then, of course, it all gets shot to hell.

***

They come into his life very nearly simultaneously: two obsessions unexpected.

They’re high school boys, and that’s...new.

Not that Derek has any issue with it. His attitude towards the sexual appetites of others has always been a careless, _Well, nothing they’re into can be worse than what I’m into_. But it still comes as a bit of a surprise, seeing as he’s never shown the slightest sign, even in his own mind, of being interested in the male form.

Apparently his libido isn’t as choosy as he thought.

They’re both on the lacrosse team, and it’s at the first game of the year that Derek first lays eyes on them.

The first is the team captain. The Whittemore kid. Jackson.

Derek hates him immediately.

Everything about the boy reeks of self-entitlement, from his seemingly erasable smirk to his perfect hair and perfect car. Derek knows the type: the sort of kid who reigns supreme in the bizarro adolescent caste system, but who eventually, inevitably ends up being despised by all once the meaningless glory of high school popularity fades to dust in the post-graduation haze. The sort of kid who holds tight to his unearned popularity to  try and mask self-esteem issues. Derek wants to be there to see that smug smirk disappear when Jackson realizes that his empire is made of nothing but dirt. He wants to see the tears.

He wants to taste them.

He wants to hold the boy down in the grass of the lacrosse field in the middle of the night and whisper in his ear, tell him how worthless and how empty his pathetic little life really is. He wants to listen to the tearing of Jackson’s sports jersey as he rips it in two, baring that soft expanse of toned flesh and tightening his stranglehold on the boy’s neck as he fucks him into the ground without pause for the screams such an assault would no doubt elicit.

He’s never wanted to destroy something more in his entire life.

The other boy, the Sheriff’s son, is more enigmatic. Stiles. A nickname, Derek assumes.

Stiles Stilinski.

Such a curious little thing. The coach hardly lets the poor boy off the bench, but he keeps a positive attitude nonetheless. Maybe it’s for show, maybe he’s just being a good sport and cheering on his teammates. But from where Derek’s sitting, it looks genuine. It looks real.

And that sweetness, that genuine good nature...it’s so hard to find.

Stiles isn’t physically striking, at least not in the traditional sense. He’s attractive, certainly, in an attainable sort of way, but he doesn’t have Jackson’s creepily perfect chiseled features, his body isn’t defined by toned muscle in the way many of his teammates’ bodies are. That said, there’s something there, something in the light of his eyes and the warmth of his boyish grin and the unapologetic awkwardness of the way he simply _exists_ in his changing skin. Something appealing on a deeper level than commonplace beauty.

It looks to Derek like a shot at salvation.

***

In a town this size, getting information is unsettlingly easy.

All Derek has to do is make some innocent small talk with a few customers at the auto-shop, get his hands on a yearbook, and write down the license plate number of a certain Jeep and a certain Porsche. It’s honestly as simple as that.

Everything he learns about Stiles surprises him. He expected as much.

The boy’s mother died when he was young, and he and his father live alone. No siblings. The father is busy most of the time with police work, and Stiles seems to have only one real friend: some kid named Scott McCall, who seems normal enough and strikes Derek as pleasantly boring in the way most teenagers tend to be.

It’s apparently a well known fact that Stiles has been pining for years after a girl named Lydia Martin, a strawberry blonde who - surprise, surprise - happens to be the girlfriend of Jackson Whittemore. 

Life’s funny sometimes.

Derek finds this concerning for all of five minutes, before he discovers that Lydia very obviously has no intention of returning Stiles’ affections. The kid’s nowhere on her radar.

So that’ll be okay, then.

Jackson ends up surprising him, too. And _that_ he did _not_ expect.

At first it seems like Derek was right in his initial assessment: the boy is a prick, an unlikeable little jackass on the surface, an insecure little kid underneath. Derek can see this in the way he interacts with his friends, with his family, with everybody he meets. It’s obvious.

And then it hits him how disturbingly obvious it really is. How perfectly obvious. How calculated.

How fake.

Because, as it turns out, the ‘scared little boy’ interior is actually just another layer of bullshit. Just another mask. 

The reality of it is, Jackson’s just like Derek.

He’s found the balance in his own life: pretending to enjoy the company of large groups of people while simultaneously pretending to have a soft shell underneath. He allows people to catch glimpses of this false insecurity so as to sway them with the illusion that they have him figured out. It’s sort of ingenious, really.

It doesn’t make Derek hate him any less, though. If anything, the discovery makes his rage all the more potent.

He doesn’t need a walking mirror of his own incompleteness. Jackson’s too similar, too dangerous for comfort.

Derek will cross that bridge when he gets there.

***

Weirdly, his first face-to-face encounter with Stiles doesn’t come about by his own planning.

The kid pulls up to the auto-shop in that monstrosity of a Jeep - Derek recognizes it immediately - and asks for an oil change.

“I should have taken care of this a month ago,” he says sheepishly, and his goofy grin is so infectious, it’s all Derek can do to stop himself from smiling right back. “I guess I just kept putting it off. But it’s making a sort of funny sound, so if you could just take a look...”

Derek nods nonchalantly, giving the car a once-over while he surreptitiously steals glances at Stiles pacing around the garage. “I’ll have it fixed up in no time,” he promises.

Stiles beams at him like he’s a godsend, and Derek has to cough uncomfortably and duck under the hood of the vehicle to hide the heat rising to his cheeks. 

The boy is a wound up ball of incessant chatter, pattering around the shop aimlessly, picking up various objects off of the shelves and examining them curiously while he talk to Derek - talks _at_ him, more like - about everything from the weather to classes to his friend Scott to how cool it would be to ride an ostrich. It’s the exact sort of nonsense that Derek would find insipid and inane coming from anyone else, but Stiles somehow makes it all worth listening to. He’s authentic. He’s not just talking for the sake of talking,  out of some sense of obligation.

He actually wants to talk to _Derek_. 

And so everything that might have annoyed him in any other situation just comes across as weirdly charming.

“Thank you so much for this,” Stiles’ voice cuts through Derek’s stupor as he’s finishing up under the hood. “Sorry if I bored you.” He grins. “I tend to ramble.”

Derek returns the smile, surprising himself with how easily it comes. “No trouble at all.”

Stiles writes him out a check and parts with a handshake. 

It’s all too brief, and Derek wants, he _needs_ more, but he tells himself to be patient. A quick, professional encounter will have to suffice for the time being.

***

Their second encounter is even shorter, but every bit as sweet.

They run into each other at the store - the same store Derek worked at as a kid - and Stiles gives him that same goofy smile, that same wide-mouthed grin that Derek doesn’t know what the hell he’s done to earn.

“So you _do_ shop for groceries like a normal person,” the kid says, and it’s cheerful, light. There’s no jibe to it. “Most people at school seem to think you live off of, like, bat carcasses or something. Weird stuff that you keep in you haunted mansion, you know?”

Derek just blinks at him, slightly taken aback that Stiles actually knows him, knows who he is beyond ‘the guy from the auto-shop.’ But the surprise is only momentary because, after all, in a small town like Beacon Hills, idle gossip is unavoidable. And what better to gossip about than the creepy young man who lives by himself in the ruined remains of his family home.

Stiles’ smile slips away, and he suddenly looks rather embarrassed with himself. “Umm...I didn’t mean to...I wasn’t. That didn’t come out right. I-”

“Shut up,” Derek interrupts, but keeps the tone soft so that Stiles knows he’s kidding.

“Will do,” Stiles replies, grin back in full force. He lifts a bag of chips off the nearby shelve and gives Derek a parting nod before pushing his cart down the isle. “See you around, Derek.”

“Yes,” Derek says, and his tone gives both of them pause. It’s a promise, bordering on a threat, and Derek thinks for a moment that he’s given himself away, but the boy just waggles his eyebrows and continues about his business, whistling tunelessly to himself as he examines his grocery list.

Derek thinks that maybe this won’t be as difficult as he’d anticipated.

***

A large part of him wants to keep the house the way it is. Not that he’s sentimental, or that he wants to maintain its charred exterior as a shrine to the dead. He just thinks it feels appropriate in its current state.

Still, he can’t afford drawing any attention to himself, and the house is by far the creepiest aspect of the persona he’s established in this town. And the little bit of money he inherited after the fire isn’t going to go to college, so, really, what’s the harm?

He hires a contractor - a bossy woman who seems to dress exclusively in wide-shouldered business suits - and he has the entire place redone. He works with the painters, helps put up the wallpaper, offers suggestions when the builders come to add on the garage. He re-grouts the bathroom tile all by himself.

To anyone looking in from the outside, it might appear that he leads a lonely life: going to work every morning, talking to maybe five people at the most each day, going to the nursing homes on weekends to check up on his uncle. It might seem like he’s missing out on something.

But Derek has everything he needs. He’s content with his lot in life.

And when the beast comes to call, comes in the night like a demon from the depths to clench in his chest and scream at him to _HaveTakeKillNow_ , the thought of Stiles, the promise of what he offers, is a steadying anchor for his restless mind.

***

He goes to most of the lacrosse games, sits in the back corner of the bleachers. He brings a can of Coke and buys a bag of popcorn from the concession stand and watches the game with detached interest. Somehow, in its own fucked up way, the fact that he thought to bring _snacks_ of all things seems to put people’s minds at ease.

As if they’re thinking, _Oh, he’s eating food. He’s just like us after all_.

He’s nowhere near inconspicuous, not even close, but people are idiots and no one’s craning their neck to study the fucking bleachers, so he’s pretty sure his constant surveillance of the Sheriff’s son has gone by unnoticed.

Mostly, at least.

He figures it’s safe, harmless, and he shameless stares at the back of Stiles’ head as the kid sits on the sidelines for most of the game, cheering on his teammates with the same maddening vigor and enthusiasm that seems to be his constant state of existence. The stadium roars as Jackson scores, rising as one, applause thundering obnoxiously in Derek’s ears.

Jackson does his typical bullshit macho posturing, waving to his adoring fans with that lazy smirk Derek so very much wants to wipe off his pretty little face. His eyes scan the crowd, perhaps looking for his parents.

His gaze falls on Derek.

His eyes follow the line of Derek’s sight, glancing between his seat in the bleachers and Stiles’ on the bench. He looks back at Derek, and the smirk is gone now, replaced by an expression Derek hasn’t seen before: a frightening sort of emptiness, a calculating look. Derek knows it well. He sees it every day in the mirror.

So, okay. Maybe it’s time to deal with _that_.

***

Again, the ease with which one can go about committing criminal behavior in Beacon Hills is seriously unnerving, even to Derek.

He waits in the shadows, hidden out of sight in the back row of the locker room, waiting as the last few players file out, talking and laughing and making plans about where to head out for the evening. And then he’s left with Jackson. All alone, just the two of them.

To the boy’s credit, he doesn’t even flinch when Derek emerges from his hiding spot. Doesn’t balk at the glare burning holes in the back of his skull.

“You’re going to start getting lazy,” Jackson says as an opener, tone smugly knowing and lofty. Derek doesn’t need clarification to understand what he’s talking about, but the kid continues anyway. “People think they’ve got you figured out, which, in your mind, pretty much ensures that no one ever will. But you know as well as I that, eventually, someone’s going to start looking a little closer. And then they’ll see what I see now.”

“Which is what, exactly?” Derek replies, not even bothering to deny the unspoken accusation.

Jackson shrugs. “I know what I know,” he says cryptically. Then, “You spend enough time looking in the mirror, you tend to notice when you see yourself in other people.”

Derek smirks, leaning against the locker, arms folded roughly across his chest. “You think you’re like me,” he says. And there’s derision in his tone, but it’s not really a question.

“I saw something I recognize,” Jackson answers easily. “Beyond that, I don’t really know what you are.” He tilts his head to the side, coy smile playing at his lips. “I’d like to, though,” he breathes. “That could definitely be worthwhile.”

Derek feels a rush of heat in his chest, has to ball his hands into fists and physically restrain himself from jumping Jackson right then and there. This kid is seriously dangerous. He could fuck up everything. “Are you going to be a problem?” he voices shortly, not bothering to put any menace into the question.

Jackson lifts his backpack lightly, pulling one strap over his shoulder. “I’m not planning on having a chat with the Sheriff anytime soon, if that’s what you mean.” He flashes his trademark all-American smile. Empty and soulless. “But I’m sure you and I will be talking again in the near future.”

Derek nods. “You can count on that,” he says, and this time he _does_ lace it with venom.

Jackson just smiles even wider. “Can’t wait,” he whispers.

***

Kate Argent has long since skipped town, moved on to the next part of her life.

Her brother Chris still lives here, though, and Derek runs into him every once in a while. Usually at the gas station. They never talk to each other, just give the upwards head nod of recognition, sometimes coupled with a casual wave. There’s never anything in the man’s eyes that betrays whether or not he knows about his sister’s darker impulses, but the way Derek sees it, it really doesn’t matter one way or the other.

So Kate’s gone, and that’s good and well, but it doesn’t stop Derek from thinking about her every now and then. Not because he misses her or because he was in love with her, but because she gave him the opportunity to walk right up to the brink of oblivion without actually having to take the plunge.

Because she knew, somehow, someway, just how to keep the beast under control.

He needs someone else like that. Needs it as badly as he needs oxygen to breathe. The urge to strike, to wrap his hands around some pretty little thing’s throat, to hammer his fist into the someone’s face as he fucks them raw...it’s all weighing down on him like a ton of bricks.

He needs a distraction. Something soon, fast.

***

It ends up coming a lot sooner than he expected. And it comes from the place he knew, deep down, it always would. It was inevitable, really.

He’s taking a stroll through the woods at night, as has become a sort of recreation for him. He pauses at the sight of the headlights in the distance, the low thrum of the engine motor rumbling on the hilltop amidst the trees.

Moving closer, his heart clenches in his chest and his hands begin to sweat when he sees whose car it is. He walks up the path cautiously, feet crunching down on the dead leaves as he approaches the fogged up window. What he sees inside makes his head spin.

Lydia Martin is lying on her back, splayed out and naked in the backseat, her mouth working uselessly in a silent scream. Jackson sits on top of her, straddling her hips, pumping into her with venomous enthusiasm, hands concealed by black leather gloves, a string of piano wire fisted tightly in his fingers as he strangles the life out of his girlfriend.

Derek’s frozen for a moment or so, too stunned to do or say anything, and the he sees the splatter of blood against the glass as the wire sears through the girl’s pale neck, slicing a thick line into her throat cavity. His vision whites out and he jerks forward thoughtlessly, gripping hold of the door handle and ripping it open, ignoring Jackson’s breath of surprise and grabbing a fistful of the boy’s hair, yanking hard and wrenching him out of the car, tossing him onto the ground.

Lydia’s eyes are wide with shock, blood gurgling up through the hole in her throat as she struggles to breathe. Derek puts a stop to it in the only way he can: he snaps her neck.

“What the fuck?” Jackson grumbles from behind him, and Derek wheels around, seething at the mouth, practically apoplectic with rage. Because the kid - the fucking _monster_ \- actually sounds annoyed with him. Like Derek interrupted his good time, or something.

“That’s not how you do it,” Derek grits out, panting angrily. “What the fuck were you thinking, you little shit? How are you going to get rid of all that blood?”

Jackson stands groggily, rubbing his head ruefully. “Wasn’t really thinking past the moment,” he mutters.

Derek opens his mouth to retort, clamping his jaw shut tight when he becomes suddenly, painfully aware that Jackson is still naked.

And that they’re all alone out here in the woods. Where no one can hear them.

The thought seems to occur to Jackson a second later, because his posture stiffens and he takes a sort of fight-or-flight stance, like he’s unsure whether to run or not.

Derek takes a steadying breath. A last attempt to calm himself. To try and convince himself that this isn’t inevitable. “Why?” he asks tonelessly, even though they both know that people like them don’t need a reason for this shit.

Jackson blinks, like that’s not the question he expected. He shifts back and forth, shivering in the cold of the night air. “I wanted to see how it felt,” he replies. And that’s not _it_ , not the full extent. It can’t be. 

But it doesn’t really matter. It’s the best answer Derek’s going to get.

Derek nods, resigned, and moves forward, quickly and with purpose.

Jackson jerks back, stiffening once more. “Wait,” he says, holding up a palm placatingly. “Wait.”

Derek doesn’t wait. He grabs Jackson by the wrist, yanking him forward, dragging him along back to the car. With a single swiping motion, he pushes Lydia’s body down into crack between the front and back seats, clearing the way to throw Jackson inside.

“ _Wait_ ,” Jackson says, more forcefully this time, feet slipping in Lydia’s blood as he scrambles to get away. Derek doesn’t let him, grabbing his leg and pulling him back as he climbs into the backseat after him, shedding his jacket at the same time. “Let’s talk about this.”

“I don’t really feel like talking,” Derek deadpans, peeling off his shirt and tossing it carelessly at the dashboard.

There’s a flash of something - fear, maybe - in Jackson’s eyes, and the boy’s breath hitches in his chest as Derek reaches down to unbutton his pants, leaning down to press the expanse of his chest against Jackson’s, holding him in place. 

“Don’t-” Jackson tries, even though Derek can already tell by the look in his eyes that he knows it’s useless.

Derek shakes his head. “We’re way past that, kid,” he murmurs dangerously. And then he smashes his mouth down against Jackson’s, rough and hard and punishing.

And the rest is sort of a haze.

***

He doesn’t remember much of it once it’s over.

He remembers the feeling of sweat and heat, the thrilling sensation of spiking pleasure, of pounding mercilessly and ignoring Jackson’s strangled groans, his quiet sobs. He remembers picking up the scent of the Martin girl as his tongue raked hot paths of sizzling moisture up Jackson’s chest, and he remembers feeling the need to rub every inch of his body against every inch of Jackson’s, just to overwrite Lydia’s smell with his own. To stake his claim. He remembers tasting bitter wetness on the boy’s cheeks. Maybe tears. He remembers coming first, then stroking Jackson until he reached that point himself.

Beyond those little flashes, all he remembers is the rage.

And now the rage is sated, and that surprises him. Because they’re lying here together in the back of Jackson’s car, panting with exertion and covered in fluids (theirs’ and Lydia’s) and somehow Derek feels satisfied, even though Jackson is still alive.

That’s unexpected.

“You’re a bastard,” Jackson murmurs, and Derek cringes at the sound. Because it’s not accusing, not tearful or broken. It’s that smug, superior tone. The one that says, _You think you’re in control here, but you’re really not_. Jackson rolls over on top of Derek, pressing his naked groin against the older man’s. “If that’s all you wanted, you should have just asked.”

Derek wants to slap him, to shove him away, but the sensation is pleasing and against his better judgment, he wants more of it. “That’s not all I wanted,” he says quietly, looking up into Jackson’s eyes with deadly calm.

Jackson’s grin widens. “Maybe not,” he whispers, leaning down to kiss the tip of Derek’s nose. A mocking gesture. “But here we are. For better or worse.” He scoots down to press his cheek against Derek’s chest, cuddling him close. It would almost be a domestic image if Jackson wasn’t a teenage boy, and if there wasn’t a fresh corpse lying in a tiny pool of blood next to them. “That happened a lot sooner than I expected,” Jackson yawns, fingers trailing down Derek’s side aimlessly. “And it didn’t happen the way I imagined. But no matter. You’re stuck with me now.”

And Derek _does_ shove him away this time. “Don’t count on that,” he sneers, gathering up his clothing. “If this happens again, it will be the last time.”

Jackson shakes his head. He doesn’t even look miffed. “It won’t,” he says confidently. “I know it won’t.”

Derek pauses, expression turning dark, dangerous. “You think I won’t kill you?” he says softly. “You willing to bet on that?”

“Yes,” Jackson answers easily, readily. “I am.” He leans back, against the chair, stretching his arms tiredly as Derek pulls his clothes back on. “I saw you walk right up to the edge,” he says, voice low and conspiratorial. “I felt you wrap your hands around my neck, saw your eyes go dark.” He winks. “But here I am. You couldn’t do it. You _wouldn’t_. You can’t kill yourself, Derek. We’re too perfect for each other.”

Derek stares. He huffs a humorless laugh, twisting the handle of the car door, stepping outside into the chill of the night. “You keep thinking that,” he scoffs, ignoring the tight feeling in his ribcage.

Jackson just smiles serenely, hand straying at his side to stroke Lydia’s hair. “I’ll see you soon,” he says.

“Don’t hold your breath.” Derek nods at the body. “You’d better take care of that. Don’t be lazy about it.”

And then he shuts the door, walking back towards his house without waiting to hear Jackson’s reply.

***

Somehow he manages to get through almost an entire month without incident. 

Lydia’s disappearance is the talk of the town for weeks. The police are baffled. They question Jackson, of course - you always, always suspect the boyfriend - but he’s so wide-eyed and convincingly heartbroken and a picture perfect poster boy for small town America, no one ever seriously considers that he could have done it.

Because that’s Jackson’s front. That’s his game: look like an asshole with a sensitive side so people can’t see the _real_ monster underneath. So they can’t see the true depths of his depravity. Derek’s got to hand it to the kid; he knows how to play ball.

As manipulative as he is by nature, Derek doesn’t even think to use Lydia’s death to his advantage with Stiles until about three weeks afterward. A mistake he quickly decides to rectify.

As with most of his actions recently, his approach is probably nowhere near as subtle as he’d like it to be, but Stiles can’t tell the difference, so it’s no matter.

He ‘happens’ upon the boy during one of his Saturday morning jogs, running down the woodland trail and whistling a merry little tune. Stiles is sitting on a log, hands shoved in his jacket pockets, gazing forlornly at the surface of the water. Derek clears his throat to announce his presence.

“Stiles?”

The boy jumps, startled, but his expression softens when he sees who it is. “Auto-shop guy. What’s up?”

Derek snorts. “You don’t know my name?”

“Derek,” Stiles amends with a smirk that is decidedly less condescending than Jackson’s. 

Derek plops down beside him on the log with a heavy sigh. “How’s it going?”

Stiles smile fades. He looks away, shrugs. “Okay, I guess,” he mumbles.

Derek waits a beat. _Three...two...._ “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks innocently, keeping his expression neutral.

He can see the doubt on the boy’s face, the surprise that a near-stranger would extend such an offer. He can see the exact moment where the hook sinks in. Stiles nods slowly, and Derek pats him on the back encouragingly.

It’s astoundingly simple, and it shouldn’t be, but having been a teenage boy himself at one point, he’s well aware of the loneliness Stiles must be feeling.

He’s got him in the palm of his hand.

***

It’s eerie how it all just seems to slide into place.

Not that Derek ever really had a particular vision of how everything would fit together in the end, but still. There’s no transition. No definitive shift from ‘guys who know each other’s names’ to ‘guys who know each other’s names and hang out from time to time.’

It starts with that first conversation in the woods, a lengthy chat that consists mostly of Stiles babbling on about Lydia and school and his father and his uncertain future while Derek listens patiently, silently, nodding every now and again to affirm that he’s paying attention. It progresses from there to Stiles showing up at the auto-shop after school some days. He doesn’t even bother with an excuse. Just comes right out and says, “Hey, you free to talk a while?”

He wouldn’t call them friends, exactly. That doesn’t feel quite right. But he’s been careful not to flirt, not to seduce, and Stiles hasn’t given any indication of sexual interest on his end either. So they’re sort of stuck in a limbo of undefinable camaraderie. Which is fine, for now. It’s better than nothing.

And besides, Derek’s not even sure what it is that he _wants_ from Stiles.

It’s not a lust thing, not entirely. It’s not like with Jackson, where he wants, where he _craves_ to taste and touch and fuck and destroy. From the very beginning, sex for Derek has always been firmly associated with violence. The two are inexorably intertwined.

The longing he feels when he spends time with Stiles, the ache in his chest that is so foreign to his sensibilities; it’s different. It’s something new.

Part of it is that he knows that Stiles is too good for a guy like him. Too pure. A man like Derek deserves someone like...

...Jackson.

Jackson, who somehow has worked his way into the fabric of Derek’s routine, wedged roughly into his schedule with no intention of going away anytime soon.

There are times, hanging out at the auto-shop after hours, listening to the soothing sound of Stiles’ endless prattle, that Derek _does_ feel that sudden need. That call of the beast that demands blood, and he very nearly allows himself to daydream about taking Stiles then and there, drinking in the gasp of surprise and burying the length of his erection into the soft curve of the boy’s flesh. He comes dangerously close to letting his hands stray ever nearer to that pale neck, itching to wring it into oblivion.

But instead, he cools down, forces himself to listen to Stiles’ stories, finishes up his duties at work, then goes to find Jackson.

Because Jackson he can hurt without regret. Jackson he can damage without guilt.

It gets to the point where the kid doesn’t even put up much of a struggle anymore. Not that he ever did, really.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Jackson drawls one such evening when Derek corners him in the locker room after a particularly intense lacrosse practice, “but you should probably be a little more discreet about this.”

“When,” Derek grits out, bending the younger boy over the bench and undoing his belt, “did I ever give you the impression that I cared about your opinion?”

Jackson groans into his fist as he feels the sharp sensation of heat and pressure jamming inside him without preparation. “Oh, never. But still, I might have some explaining to do if I keep showing up to school with bruises and a limp. Not everyone in this town is an idiot, believe it or not.”

Derek pants silently, rocking forward in rolling, rough, rhythmic thrusts, drinking in the satisfaction of Jackson’s pain. “You’re clever. I’m sure you’ll think of a good excuse.”

Another such time, lying in the backseat of Derek’s car in the woods behind his house, Jackson laughs quietly into the curve of Derek’s neck as they lie together in the afterglow.

Derek rolls his eyes. “I know I’m going to regret asking this,” he grumbles, “but what is it?”

Jackson cranes his neck, looking up with those bright, empty eyes. “You think you’re doing this to protect him,” he mutters, hand snaking down Derek’s stomach to grasp teasingly at his cock. “You think I’m just a way to vent your frustration. To help tame the madness.”

Derek slaps his hand away, turns his head to look glare him. “You are,” he says coldly.

“I’m not,” Jackson replies, cool and infuriatingly confident as ever. “You want Stilinski because he’s everything you’re not. Opposites attract, and all that shit. You think maybe you can catch some of his sunshine if you spend enough time with him, but you’re wrong. You know you’re wrong, and you know I’m not just a distraction.”

He winces as Derek grips his wrists, squeezing them tight and digging his fingernails into the skin. “Shut up,” Derek hisses, pinning him down. 

“We can’t change, Derek,” Jackson whispers, and he almost, _almost_ sounds gentle. “All we can do is ride it out, wait to get caught. Hope against hope that it won’t be for a long time.” His mouth twists up in wry amusement. “The harder you fight the beast, the harder it’s going to push back. You can’t have the life you want. Stop fighting the life you deserve.”

Derek punches him in the face, cutting off whatever else he may have had to say. But the sight of blood dripping from the boy’s broken nose is far less satisfying than he’d hoped it would be.

It’s not enough to curb the fear that all the things he said are true.

***

“It’s my mom’s anniversary,” Stiles says in lieu of an introduction, indirectly explaining the redness in his still-wet eyes. “This is the day that she died.”

Derek nods, wiping off the oil from his hands, sitting down on the hood of the car he’s been working on all day. “Want to talk about it?”

Stiles shakes his head. “No, not at all.”

“Want to talk about her?"

He pauses, considering it, then shakes his head again. “Not really.”

Derek shrugs. “That’s cool.” He thinks for a minute, watching the boy pace up and down the length of the garage. “Want to visit the cemetery?”

Stiles’ jaw tightens. “No. I already went with my dad this morning.”

Derek takes a risk, places a hand on Stiles’ shoulder and tries not to revel in the thrill of the touch. “Want to see a movie?” he asks softly.

Stiles’ mouth twists into a small, sad smile. He wipes his eyes. “Sure. That sounds great.”

***

The Sheriff was bound to get suspicious sooner or later, and by the time he shows up on Derek’s doorstep for a ‘little chat,’ Derek’s just surprised that it took the man this long to get around to it.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Stiles,” he says simply, apparently opting to begin with pointing out the obvious.

Derek shrugs. “He seems lonely. He likes to talk, and I like to listen. So I give him my ear.”

The Sheriff studies him, unsure, wary. “So you’re friends?” he asks. And he doesn’t _quite_ put the emphasis on ‘friends’ in the way that implies he suspects Derek’s intentions are impure, but at the same time, there’s a hint of _something_ off in his tone. 

Derek chooses to avoid the complicated route by oversimplifying. “Yes. We’re friends.”

The Sheriff makes a quiet noise, a frustrated little sound. His mouth opens and shuts a couple of times, like he’s trying to choose which question to voice first. He ends up going with, “Should I be worried?”

And that’s decidedly ambiguous. But Derek’s had enough experience with this sort of lying to know how to do it right. “Yes.”

The Sheriff blinks, expression somewhere halfway between surprise and outrage. “Excuse me?”

Derek clarifies, “He’s your son. You’re a cop and a father, and your underage child is spending an inordinate amount of time with an adult man. So, yes. I’d say it’s natural that you’re worried.”

“Ah.” He seems to relax at that. Then, a bit sharper, “I love my kid, Mr. Hale. Don’t violate the trust I’m placing in you by allowing him to spend time with you.”

Derek gives him his most charming smile. “Of course, sir.”

So that’s that. Short and painless, and without arousing suspicion.

Nice and clean.

***

It works, for a short while. Long enough for Derek to start believing that maybe Jackson is full of shit after all.

Someone less patient than Derek would demand more. The afternoon chats and occasional hang outs wouldn’t satisfy most. But Derek’s willing to wait and see where this budding friendship goes, even if it takes some time to become something more.

The little glimpses of happiness he’s privy to now are more than enough. The brief time he has with Stiles is his private slice of paradise.

***

So, of course, it doesn’t last.

***

When he sees her at first, he’s sure it’s just his imagination playing tricks on him. Because no one’s life, not even _his_ , can be this cruel.

But, no. There she is, in the flesh. Kate Argent, strolling down the isle of the supermarket, barely aged a day. Her eyes meet Derek’s from across the way, and that cheshire-cat grin is quick to follow the momentary surprise.

“Well, well,” she murmurs, fingernails raking against the handlebar of the shopping cart. “You grew up nice.”

He meets her gaze stoically. “If you say so.”

She chuckles. “Oh, I do. Most definitely.” She pushes past him, casting a sly glance over her shoulder to throw him a wink that seems more mocking than lascivious. “I’ll be staying at my brother’s place for a few days,” she sing-songs. “We should catch up before I leave.”

He watches as she turns the corner, feels the pounding of his heart in his chest, bites down hard against the familiar rising of want from within.

_It’s fate_ , that deep, dark part of him croons enticingly. _It was always going to be this way._  

And just like that, he knew it was over. The shot at happiness, the chance to change. It was a sliver of a fantasy to begin with, but looking at _now_ , feeling like _this_...

This is what he was always meant to be.

There’s no joy in the future for Derek Hale. Jackson was right. It’s only a matter of prolonging the end.

***

When he corners Jackson in the parking lot after school the next day, the kid stiffens instinctively, jerking against the side of his Porsche with a wary expression, like he’s expecting to get raped again.

But then he sees the look in Derek’s eyes, and a triumphant gleam flashes in his own.

“What are you, Derek?” he asks softly, hand coming up to stroke Derek’s wrist.

Derek swallows thickly, glaring daggers at the boy he hates. The boy he wants to destroy, but can’t. 

The lover he deserves.

“I’m a killer,” he answers, words tasting like bile on the tip of his tongue.

Jackson reaches up to pat his cheek, and the gesture isn’t condescending for once. It’s a sort of _Yeah, buddy. I get it._ Like this is a process he’s been through himself already. Like he’s already learned to accept his own demons.

“So who is it this time?” he asks, his mind already in tune with Derek’s line of thought.

Derek leans heavily against the side of the car. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

***

He remembers it afterwards like a rebirth of sorts. Like a baptism of blood.

He doesn’t remember waiting in the car in the undergrowth, headlights turned off as they wait together for Kate to come around the bend. He doesn’t remember the screech of the blow out as she drives over the road spikes and flips her car over three times, tumbling into the tree-line and out of sight. He doesn’t remember Jackson panting in exhilaration as they drag her unconscious body out of the wreckage, carrying it back across the road and dropping her in their trunk.

He remembers:

The sweat and the tears, the shocked cries of panic, the screech cut silent as the box cutter slices through the skin, the gargling sounds of blood bubbling up through the wound as Jackson pulls a sheet of plastic wrap firm and tight over her gaping mouth. The frenzied look in her bulging eyes as Derek claims her one last time, riding her out into white-hot bliss. Jackson’s cheerful whistling as he takes his turn.

Standing naked in the basement, coming down from the high of the kill, his body trembling from the adrenaline. His arms bathed in crimson, bits and pieces of flesh still stuck underneath his fingernails.

Jackson comes to find him soon after, and they stand together in the bedroom of the Hale house, both of their faces dripping red.

“I wanted something else,” Derek says softly, breathing steadying as the beast quiets down. “This isn’t how I wanted things to be.”

Jackson nods absently, reaching out to grab Derek’s hand. He brings it up to his mouth, presses a wet kiss against the skin. “If it’s any consolation, this isn’t what I wanted either. Nobody wants this.”

Derek swallows. “I felt something,” he says, and there’s no need to clarify that he’s talking about Stiles. “I _still_ feel something. I thought for a while that...it might be love.”

“It’s not,” Jackson says, not unkindly.

“It could be,” Derek insists.

“It couldn’t,” Jackson assures. “And even if that were true, it still wouldn’t be enough to drown out the rest of the noise. You couldn’t be happy with someone like him. He’s too good.”

“I could have been happy,” Derek protests, albeit feebly. “Maybe, someday. I could have worked at it.”

Jackson shakes his head. “Your darkness would have dragged him down, made him just like you. And then you would have hated him. Just like you hate me.”

It’s not a question, and there’s nothing in his tone that requires confirmation, but Derek’s feeling bitter, so he turns to glare and says, “I do, you know. I do hate you.”

Jackson’s mouth twists at the side. Wry. Accepting. “I know.”

Derek doesn’t let go of his hand, though. He sighs, exhausted. “Do I have to stop seeing him? Can’t I just...try to be his friend?”

Jackson shrugs. “I’m not your keeper. You can do what you like. Just be prepared for the consequences of your actions, whatever you decide.”

A wolf howls in the distance. Hands joined, standing naked in the bedroom covered in blood, they gaze out the window into the woods. 

After a few minutes, Jackson squeezes Derek’s hand and moves to let go, but Derek holds it firm, keeping him in place. 

“Wait,” he says quietly, feeling suddenly like a much older man. “Wait.”

Jackson pauses. “Yeah?”

Derek swallows. He gestures at the bed. “Lie with me?”

It’s the first time he’s asked permission, and he doesn’t miss the flash of startled disbelief on Jackson’s face. But then the boy is nodding in consent and they’re moving together towards the mattress and all of Derek’s thoughts just sort of...evaporate.

He knows he’ll have to make a decision soon. He knows he’ll be seeing Stiles’ face in his dreams for many nights to come. He knows that this thing with Jackson - whatever it’s become - is eventually going to destroy the both of them, one way or the other.

But, as with so much else in his pathetic little life, he can’t find it in him to care. He was on the road to hell from the moment he was born.

So it goes.

**Author's Note:**

> I keep telling myself I'm going to write a happy fic....
> 
> ...we'll get there. Anyway, I'm not sure what fucked-up part of my brain this little gem crawled out of, and it's the most disjointed, upsetting, nihilistic, creepy thing I've ever written. (All intentional, I must confess.) I wasn't sure whether or not to publish it (I only started writing it to get the creative juices flowing on another fic I've been working on), but in the end, I figured I might as well share it.
> 
> Hopefully it wasn't TOO upsetting...


End file.
